You're list Saints KFI AM six forty the bill Handles show on demand on the iHeartRadio f It.
Is a bill Handle show way in resident here until nine and quick couple of updates. These stories were following about Hurricane Milton. We told you there were at least four people confirmed dead from tornadoes that sprung up because of Hurricane Milton.
Now in Saint.
Petersburg, the police there say there are two deaths related to the storm. One of them was a medical incident and the other is i'll just quote it, someone that was found in a park. The cause of death pending. And we're starting to see the first idiots. The hurricane just left landfall not too long ago, and we have the first idiots going around cutting lines that they see, I guess, thinking that they're helping. So Florida State authorities are urging people please do not cut any line because
you don't know. If it's a cable line, you don't know, if it's an electrical line, you don't know.
If it's a fiber optic line.
Most of the nine to one to one systems run across the fiber optic lines, and nobody should be cutting any lines.
Now as we do every time.
This week we bring on Joel Larscard, the host of how to Money right here on KFI every Sunday from noon to two pm on social media at how to Money.
Joel. Good morning, sir, thank you for being here.
Good morning Wayne.
Well let's get right into this. There's a lot of things to talk about. So I want to start with Experience. A credit bureau apparently now they have a debit card. Why.
That's a really good question.
Why Why and how?
I because I think of a debit card as being a card to directly access a bank account.
Last time I checked, Experience not a bank.
Right, and and so yeah, the credit bureaus are already fairly untrustworthy. Nobody after the Experience credit breach of twenty seventeen and one hundred plus million Americans data being leaked out. The credit bureaus don't necessarily and think about all the problems that people have with credit bureaus. If there's a problem on their credit report and they try to get it fixed, most of the time, the credit bureaus are
incredibly unhelpful. And now they're saying, hey, listen, we want to kind of act as a bank for you now.
Too, and so they know.
They've cleverly named this their smart money debit card, and so they're partnering with some other bank, as fintech companies tend to do these days, to offer this service that they say is going to actually maybe help you improve your credit. At the same time, it's completely over sold. The perks are lackluster. This isn't a great product, and people have to think really long and hard about who
they do business with. We're in an age of like ever proliferating options on the on the banking front, and really so many things that we can do. We have more options than ever before. But it doesn't mean that those sure options are good.
Oh boy, I got a lot of questions.
So I guess my first quest you mentioned you know this this new trend of partnering with different banks, which is what Apple does with its Apple Card, Yes, which is managed by is it Goldman Sacks?
I forget, Yeah, which supposedly in limbo, like somebody else might be taking that over.
Yeah, yeah, they want it. Goldman wants out. But but okay, but that's a credit card. Now here's experience, and they're gonna get with a bank. I guess will be behind the scenes, it's a debit card. How does using a debit card help your credit? You're not you're not You're not borrowing money. When you use a credit card, you're technically borrowing money for a period of time and.
Then you pay it back.
And then people go, oh, look he paid back this money that he borrowed by charging on his card. But a debit card is uh, please give that guy my money right now.
Wow, So how does that build credit?
So Experience has this thing behind the scenes called Experience Boost, and what they're trying to do is check and see, hey, is this person paying some of those monthly bills every single month consistently and on time? And so that's something
they can tell if you're using a debit card. And actually, in some ways, I kind of like that because the way the credit scoring system works, You're right, there's all these hoops that you have to jump through, and they're like, we have to It takes a long time to explain exactly how credit scores work and what people can do to improve their credit scores. And for a lot of people that are like, I don't even why is my
credit score six twenty? I don't even know, and so that's like another system that people have to learn oftentimes when we're talking about improving their financial life. And so this is a way. But the Experience Boost thing where if you just pay your rent and let's say your electricity bill or something like that on time every month, you might be able to see like an incremental boost in your credit score. So I think that's kind of cool.
But the interesting thing is, uh, Experience Boost is free, and you can sign up at their website and you can potentially improve your credit score with experience. By doing that, you don't have to actually get the debit card that they're trying to push on you to make that happen.
Wait, but I'm confused.
You mean the the debit card would help you because you would pay your electric bill with the debit card.
Yeah, And so they're just saying, oh, this is the kind of person who pays their bills on time every single.
Got it if you pay your bill with the with the debit card.
So they're targeting so they're targeting people who want to improve their the that's the selling point is this can help you improve your credit score.
So they're targeting people who I'm assuming.
Have lower credit scores with the promis audience, with the promise of use this card get into bed further with us directly. It's almost know, I mean, how far and be honest, don't don't agree with me just to be nice because you're a nice person. How far away is this from? Hey, if you want a better credit score, why don't you just hand me some money in an envelope? Yeah.
No, it's got some mafia esque vibes to it. And the other thing, like the credit bureaus are so untrustworthy. For instance, like the best solution for so many people if you want to protect your credit score is to do something known as a credit freeze. And the thing is, a credit freeze is free thanks to federal law. And yet they have their own proprietary products that are like credit locks. So they have their own naming systems and
naming conventions for these things. And you can go to their website and they'll try to sell you on why this is so good, And it's only twenty bucks a month, which is more than you pay for Netflix, but it's an inferior product. It's not as good as a credit freeze, and yet it's going to cost you like two hundred plus bucks a year to get this product from them. They're marketing things in order to try to increase their profitability, but things that are great for them, but they're awful
for you. They are free products that are that are superior that Uh yeah, you don't. Their marketing strategies are often aimed at parting consumers from their money, but not really offering them much in return.
Wayne Resnik.
Here until nine o'clock, we are with Joel lars Guard, the host of how to Money every Sunday noon to too right here on KFI and on social media at how to Money, Joel, Joel, I know that Bloomberg, I don't remember how long ago it was published a thing and said there is there is one hundred percent going to be a recession.
Uh huh.
Now that didn't happen, So that was two years ago, and which is pretty great. Yeah, Well that proves that at least not all predictions about whether there's going to be a recession are worth anything. What's the current state, who's predicting what about the chance of a recession? And when, if ever, should we pay attention to these predictions.
Yeah, I think it's a really good idea to basically hold people accountable when they make a prediction that's completely off base. And there are people out there all the time on I mean that these twenty four to seven news networks, twenty four to seven business networks, they got to have people on to talk about stuff, and they got to have sensational headlines to kind of make the
world go around. And yeah, this prediction a couple of years ago, literallysion the recession indicator that Bloomberg quote unquote has said one hundred percent certainty it's going to happen within the next twelve months. And we've seen what's happened with the economy over the last couple of years. Not perfect for everyone, but my goodness, we're in one of
the best economic situations we've been in. And now there was another I think it was Golden Sacks basically just said we've reduced our projected likelihood of a recession to just fifteen percent in the coming year. And yeah, when you there's always like this joke that economists have predicted like eight of the last three recessions, Like there's always somebody saying there's no dearth of people saying that there's something negative is going to is going to happen. It's
coming around the bend. You should be worried.
And then now.
I almost feel like I'm a little bit worried when someone says, ah, recession probably not going to happen. We shouldn't be worried at all. That might be actually the time when we should be a little more worried.
So it's a fools It's a fool's game, yeah, I think so trying to say to people, this is what you can count on.
Everybody's got everybody's got an opinion, right, And I get why someone might say, hey, everything's going really well right now, recession doesn't seem like it's around the bend. But oftentimes the things that cause recessions are causing economic downturns are
really hard to see. Like think about something like COVID, like nobody was predicting, Oh, guess what, pretty sure that's going to send supply shocks through the economy and cause a really different difficult economic time for the United States and for the world. Or think about maybe what's happening now in the Middle East. If things get out of control, could oil prices shoot up, could it create some dark clouds of the economy.
Sure, it totally could.
And so these are there are things that really we don't it's hard to predict. And so my advice on a personal finance level to people is to ay, maybe tune people out if they say, oh, this is definitely
gonna happen, or there's no chance of this happening. I would I would take that with a grain of salt, and on top of that, be prepared for whatever could come about, because even if there's not some sort of macro recession in our economy economy, there could be a micro recession in your life if let's say your industry is hit and your job is cut or something like that, and you have to go out there and try to
find something else in a different difficult economic climate. Even if there's not some sort of macrocession, I always want people to be prepared in their own home for the potential of a recession in their own lives.
Yeah, hey, let's move on to this.
Yesterday I talked about how Kamala Harris is going to crack down on price gouging. Oh, yeah, but there's there's the Federal Reserve Bank have done these studies and said there really isn't widespread price There is some some places, but there's really not widespread price gouging. And Elizabeth Warren now is out there wanting to crack down on shrinkflation when instead of raising the price, the company, you know,
makes the product smaller. And I got a note here that you wanted to talk about how you don't think it's that shrink flation is a real problem. Do you mean you don't think it happens or do you think it doesn't. It happens, but it doesn't really it's not an important thing relative to all the other financial.
Issues that people have. Yeah, no, it definitely, it definitely happens. But when you think about how big of a problem is it and what would the flip side be, it certainly seems like a really silly thing to complain about. So oh man, the family size of cocoa puffs shrunk from nineteen ounces to eighteen ounces, and yet they're charging
the same price. And these are the kind of things that some of our politicians are sending letters to the heads of some of these companies about, hey, stop the shrink flation, keep those package sizes the same, don't shrink my gatorade bottle by four ounces, and so this is what's happening. But and yes, is the bottle size or the package size? Is it shrinking? Yes, but the alternative, because we all know prices have gone up the cost of hiring employees, like the labor costs have gone up too.
Like if you don't want your gatorade bottle size to shrink by four ounces, the alternative is paying more for the bigger bottle. And so these companies know that they want to keep you loyal. They don't want you to be sticker shocked at the store and then say I'm not going to buy the Gatorade because it costs too much. What they'd rather do is shrink the size of the product,
hoping that you'll remain a customer. I think shrinkflation. I don't know why people are up in arms about it in the ways that they are, because I actually think of it as a good thing. That the onus on the consumer then is to know the price per unit, right, and that's often listed on the price tag. Let's say you're you're walking around at your local grocery store or costco. You can see, okay, what's the price per unit? How much does this per ounce? And you can compare prices
that way, you want to be an informed consumer. But I don't think of shrinkflation as actually a big deal or even a bad.
Thing at all.
Almost sounds like it's an opportunity for us to be smarter consumers.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I think maybe some people don't realize and they pick up the bottle and they're like, oh man, that felt like it might have been a little bit less. Or think about ice cream containers instead of being a full pint now they're one and a half courts or something like that, And I get why maybe that might frustrate people, but again, the alternative is paying more for the thing, And the truth is you're paying more per ounce or you're paying more, you know, per per gallon.
Of ice cream that you consume.
But it's gonna happen either way.
And I don't mind kind of the tack to that companies take of saying we're gonna slightly reduce the packaging size try to keep the price the same, to try to prevent people from freaking out. And it's just really it's so strange because guess what if the packaging for Gatorade changes and you don't like that, Well, you can go to power aid or something like that. Right, there are still other options for people out there. This is
just one of those weird things done. I'm shocked continues to be something that remains in the limelight as an area of focus.
Great to talk to you, Joel.
We will check you out when you're hosting how to Money this Sunday from noon to two on KFI and on social media. How to Money Joel, and looking forward to talking to you again next week.
Sounds good, Thanks Wayne.
All right there he goes Joel Larscart and we're watching some stories for you, including obviously Hurricane Milton and the aftermath. We know that four people were killed by tornadoes, and now we're getting word from Saint Petersburg that two people were well.
They passed away related to the storm.
There was a medical incident, and then somebody was found in a park deceased. They are still trying to figure out precisely what the cause of death was. There three million plus homes and businesses without power. President Biden getting updates from a Homeland Security advisor as well as from
the head of FEMA, and the recovery work begins. Now there's still a presidential campaign going on and vice presidential candidate Tim Walls been going around the country and he was in California and he was appearing with Governor Newsom and he was talking about getting rid of the electoral College. He said, I think all of us know the electoral College needs to go, which is a lot of people want to keep.
The electoral College.
And those people are Trump supporters because the electoral college absolutely helps Donald Trump in his quest to be the president again. So in any event, he's running around talking about getting rid of the electoral College. It wasn't just with Gavin Newsom here in California. Apparently he was talking like that up in Seattle. And I'm not saying he's I mean, lots of people want to get rid of
the electoral College, maybe just as many. Actually, polling shows a majority of Americans want to get rid of the electoral college. So what he's saying is the more popular position. But the campaign, the Harris Walls campaign, is not like they're not making it a big deal as part of the official campaign platform or anything like that. It is not an official position of the campaign to get rid
of the electoral College. If it was gone, it would be far more likely that we would have President Harris and less likely that we will have President Trump again.
But in any.
Event, the question has been raised since most Americans a majority, want to get rid of the electoral College, to remind ourselves why it's there at all, because, you know, the Founding Fathers at that time, it was such, it was a completely different country, slavery anywhere in the country, and have a modern perspective, they couldn't possibly and so the big problem was they're trying to put together a country and they're trying to decide how will we elect a president?
And the Southern slave states were saying, hey, this is bs. You can't just let everybody vote and then whoever gets the most.
Vote that they win. We can't have that. Well why not?
Well, number one, you know, a lot of people are stupid. We don't really want ordinary people voting and picking a president. And a lot of the Founding Fathers agreed. In fact, most of the Founding Fathers seem to agree that you know what, something like president, you don't want to just let every Tom, Dick and Harry vote for the president. They weren't not huge fans of direct democracy, the Founding Fathers.
They said, yeah, Okay, a lot of people are stupid, that's true, But why else And the Southern States said, well, because we have all of these people living here who can't vote, and so we're not getting any credit for how many congressional seats that we get or how many you know, our contribution to electing a president, because we've got so many people who are here and they deserve to be part of the equation, but they can't vote.
And the founding fathers said, oh, yeah, you know, you got women there, and they said, no, no, not them, the slaves.
We have.
The reason that we have a lot of people that can't vote and we're not getting counted properly or completely is because we enslave people here.
We keep them as personal, private property.
And we would like to get some benefit from the presence of these slaves. And the founding father said, all right, here's what we're gonna do. And you've probably heard this idea that slaves were considered three fifths of a person. That's for the purpose of the electoral college. They said,
here's what we'll do. White people are a person. You got all these slaves, we'll let them count each one as three fifths of a person in order to come up with the total people that you have to determine how many congressional seats you get and your proportionate contribution to the election of a president. That's why we have it.
And that's not a great reason to have it. You could say, well, what about put aside the slavery and the racism and all that, what about just the fact that you have big states with lots of people and you have little states with not a lot of people, and you don't want the big states stomping on the little states.
And that was a concern at the time.
At the time it was New York and Virginia, where like the big dog states and the smaller states were like, we don't want New York in Virginia dictating everything. Now, that might be a legitimate reason to not use the popular vote, but really it's not founded on a strong basis that is relevant today the electoral college. So I don't think it's going anywhere, by the way, But that's why we have it, And at the time you can understand why people wanted it. Some people wanted it, but
the circumstances are different now. Wayne, resident here for one more segment. We are watching some stories for you. Over three million homes and businesses have no power in flo Florida.
Hurricane Milton blew through there.
It's gone now from Florida, but boy is it left the devastation in its wake. President Biden has taken the gloves off in that these rumors about the government can control the weather, they're not rumors. They're false claims that the government is controlling the weather. He finally just came right out and said, it's stupid, these lies about the
government controlling the weather. What is true about the government is they're going to give Social Security recipients a two and a half percent cost of living increase starting next year.
And it is time to bring.
On mister Moe Kelly, host of Later with Mo Kelly on KFI weeknights seven to ten pm. You'd like to have him on this show for a segment We call Earlier with Mo Kelly. Mo good morning, so good to speak with you.
Good morning, Wayne. It's always nice to hear your voice.
So do you want to get right into this? This is such a I mean, it already was an interesting case of a celebrity.
Being accused of rape.
Yeah, and now it's taken quite a startling turn.
It has escalated quickly, as they say, and we learned more that there was a large backstory legally now than we did when the allegations were first publicized.
Yes, against we should say, we're talking about Garth Brooks has been is being sued by a woman who says that he raped her.
Right and this actually, now we find out, goes back to July, where, according to Garth Brooks's attorneys, Brooks was sent a demand letter asking for millions of dollars or a threat that he would be sued for millions of dollars. That was back in July, and then he was sued, and that case was in a Mississippi court, and there was a Jane Doe suing a John Doe. Neither party's name was used, but there was also a threat that
the Jane Doe would sue Garth Brooks in California. That is the suit that we all know about, and his name was used. In response to that, Garth Brooks that I'm just really boiling this down. Garth Brooks attorneys have said, wait a minute, how is it you're going to use our client's name in California and not in Mississippi when it was agreed upon in the Mississippi case that neither
party's name would be used. And so in a response filing, Garth Brooks's attorneys are saying, well, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
And I'm not making a value judgment.
I'm just saying that Garth Brooks's legal counsel has decided to reveal the name of the accuser in a response filing, and so here we are.
It is escalated quickly.
Because this can be a big deal.
I mean it's a big deal, I guess any time a victim's identity is revealed when they have not agreed to it. But this because her lawyers are saying now they want the maximum sanction yes, against his lawyers for revealing her name, even though she revealed his name in the same case.
Correct, But the optics of anyone revealing a rape accuser's name is not going to go over well. But when you put it in the fuller context of how we got here, you at least understand the thinking. I'm not saying that I agree with revealing the accuser's name. I understand that where they're going with this, and the accusers lawyers are saying, well, fair or not, you're not supposed to do that, So we're going to ask the court to further sanction you.
Well, I mean, obviously the judge will decide whether the lawyers for Garth Brooks did something wrong or not. And if he did something, if they did something wrong, how how bad it is?
Is this?
I hate to sound stupid, but you have a Mississippi CA and that's federal court in Mississippi. Yes, and then you have a case here is this are both cases about the same incident from what we.
Could tell, yes, they are inclusive of the same incident. And what she's also alleging is an ongoing pattern of abuse text messages, stalking to a certain degree where he was relentless in his pursuit of her. The actual rate which is being alleged is in a specific location.
But she's alleging an ongoing pattern of abuse.
Okay, So I mean, I don't know all the specifics about why you would have two different federal jurisdictions. At some point I would imagine they should figure out which one is the best one and do it. But I think the other thing that was lost on me at first is first, there was nothing. There were no cases, There were no allegations against Garth Brooks. You know, there was nothing, and if and if what you're telling me.
It started with Garth Brooks suing her.
No, No, it started with a demand letter from her.
Demand letter from her.
And then Garth Brooks sued her in Mississippi.
No, she sued him in Mississippi after the demand letter was not met. Then she fills suit in California.
Okay, because some of the reporting is a little wonky on this, all right, then that's then then that follows I guess the normal course of conduct. Now they're saying they revealed her name, and then they're also saying that this is a shakedown and and and all of that.
When someone says sends a demand.
Letter, in any situation, you could say, well, maybe it's a shakedown, whether it's a car accident or whatever it is, because all they've done is sent us a letter saying give me money.
Right, they're asking for the money or will take this to court.
Yeah, but then they when someone follows through and files the lawsuit. I tend to think it's less likely that it's an unfounded shakedown because now they're opening up a situation where they can be held accountable for what they say and they're going to have a lot of obligations.
To prove their case.
So, I mean, I don't know what's going on here, so I would never opine, but man, this thing is crazy now and it'll be interesting to see if it turns into another controversy with Garth Brooks's lawyers being in big trouble.
Yeah, And to clarify what you're saying, there are reports which are saying that she sued him in Mississippi, and their reports that's saying that he sued her in Mississippi, but since there was John Doe Jane, it's still unclear.
Yeah, that's part of the problem. When you don't know who you're talking about, you can't keep it straight. Now you're gonna keep it straight for us tonight from seven to ten on your own show Later with mo Kelly.
Do you want to give a quick hint of what you're gonna be talking about.
Well, we're always talking about tech at the very minimum on Tech Thursday, So beyond Garth Brooks, we're going to talk about technology and how it has played a role in helping save people in the wake as you said of Hurricane Milton and Moore.
All right, thank you, so good to talk to you. We'll talk to you again next week, see soon. All right, he didn't know that, he didn't know I was gonna be here next week, but now he does. All right, that's the show. Thank you everybody. Garry and Shannon coming up NeXT's KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch my Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeart Radio app.